Pakistan’s disastrous 1st day in the UAE
Everyone was hoping that the series in the UAE will ultimately help Pakistan redeem itself in the World of cricket. But that was not to be, and Pakistan fell a little short of finding redemption, as South Africa defeated the hosts by 6 wickets with 10 balls
remaining.
Defending the runs was a tough ask from the very beginning as the Pakistani batsmen managed only to put a meagre total of 119 runs on the board, which even for the top Pakistani bowling line up was difficult to defend.
However, Pakistan had the expertise of veteran fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, and perhaps all hopes were pinned on him to take http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 to victory, Akhtar played his part by bowling magnificently well, after a very long time showing that he was back to his best,
Shoaib took 2 early wickets in a single over, by picking up the wickets of the ace T20 South African batsmen Loots Bosman and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/AB-de-Villiers-c887.
At this point South Africa were 16 with 2 wickets down, Pakistan were clearly aiming for a victory and eyeing to go for the kill. Akhtar had lifted the spirits of the Pakistani fielders.
The spinners did their part and Mohammad Hafeez chipped in by taking the crucial wicket of the left hander Graeme Smith, the score was 26 for 3, the Pakistanis definitely had their tails up at this point.
It was turning into a neck-to-neck match, but then came the match winning partnership of 87 runs between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/A-Wall-c41352 between victory and Pakistan.
The Pakistani bowlers were clueless of how to tackle these brick solid batsmen. At this point the Pakistani skipper was running out of ideas, he needed to think out of the box to stop the match from slipping out of the clutches of Pakistan.
Solid batting and poor fielding hurt Pakistan and it was all left to the bowlers to do something outstanding. But the pitch was not helping the bowlers and the South African batsmen had little difficulty playing whatever the Pakistanis were throwing at them.
The two South Africans proved everyone wrong. Pundits expected the Proteas will have one h**l of a time batting on a pitch similar to the Subcontinent and especially against the stinging Pakistani bowling attack.
Pakistan skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 introduced the ace T20 bowler Umar Gul when the score was just 29/3. But unfortunately Gul was unimpressive in this match. After the failure of Umar Gul the confidence of the South Africans grew, while it had an adverse effect
on Pakistan.
Even the dynamic bowling of Boom Boom Afridi could not break the partnership between Duminy and Ingram.
Finally it was Umar Akmal, who took a low diving catch off Saeed Ajaml’s bowling to send Jean-Paul Duminy back after he had scored a beautiful knock of 41 runs, by then the damage was already done, as South Africa needed just 28 runs to win off 25 balls.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 to victory with 10 balls still left in the innings.
Earlier none of the Pakistani batsmen could stay on the wicket and score freely. They seemed totally out witted by the South African bowling brigade, only the Pakistani skipper showed some flair by hitting a knock of 25 runs off just 8 balls.
But that didn’t last long and Afridi was stopped by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Johan-Botha-c67173 from scoring anymore runs and gave a catch to Bosman, trying to hit a six. The rest of the batting line up gave a despicable show, unable to counter the South African onslaught. The highest
scorer from the home side was http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Misbah-ul-Haq-c1972 with 27 runs off 43 balls (not out).
This was once again a match lost purely and surely due to poor batting by the Pakistanis. The pitch totally favoured the batmen but it was the wrong choice of shot selection that led the demolition process of the Pakistani batting line up.
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